Ed Garvey doesn’t pull any punches, and his WYSIWYG persona carries over to his managerial style at The Garvey Group. As the adage goes, this is not your father’s printing establishment, and The Garvey Group owner professes to a different managerial style from his dad’s methods. Not that the son’s ways are better per se, just different.

“We try to be hands-on as much as possible. And I’ll answer any employee’s question honestly and thoroughly to the best of my knowledge, as long as it can be public information,” Garvey says. “We try not to sugarcoat. All of our managers are encouraged to answer questions. It’s a much different environment than my dad’s era, when information was kept close to the vest. We tend to share more info than my father’s generation.”

Then again, the company had 11 employees at the time of Ed Garvey Sr.’s passing; it now has 170 on the payroll. Customers have changed as well; more structured, specific buyers are forcing printers to increasingly accentuate their value proposition. Knowing how to be a solutions provider for a given client, and being able to underscore that in a face-to-face meeting, is more than half of the battle.

“You’re really not going to thrive if you can’t articulate what your value is to a customer,” Garvey notes. “My presentation skills have improved over the years. We had to change to reflect those kinds of attitudes from the customer. It’s been a fairly sizable change.

“We can’t sell (our services) today the same way that my father sold them in 1970. The sale itself is complex, and it can be a very long process. It takes a lot of perseverance to get through some of the sales cycles.”

There are those people who look at the successful innovations of the past 10 to 15 years—many of them Internet related—and snap their fingers wistfully. Simple concepts, one and all, yet precious few people have the prescient confidence and stomach to follow through on them.

Well, the printing industry has long demanded that its members invest in a crystal ball, or become mind readers/prognosticators, in order to remain viable over a long period of time. Sure, only a few people are able to hit upon the next big thing and earn a king’s ransom in the process. But many printers have guessed/speculated/prognosticated incorrectly when it comes to selecting the technologies that will benefit their customers, and themselves, in the long run. And, their king’s ransom turned into a bankruptcy sale.

But, for those who follow technology closely, stay in-tune with their customers’ needs and correctly gauge the market(s) course, there’s the opportunity to live to see another quarterly report.

Ed Garvey hasn’t squeaked through with Forrest Gump-ish fortune floating on the whims of a wind-blown feather. The president and CEO of Niles, IL-based The Garvey Group—fresh out of college in 1978—took the helm of his family-owned business following the sudden death of his father, and has transformed it from a $1.2 million business forms provider with about a dozen employees to a $40 million performer employing 175 people in four locations.

Garvey has developed a knack for making all of the right calls and folding his hand when necessary, making him printing’s equivalent of poker pro Johnny Chan. It’s also earned the suburban Chicago native a spot in the 2010 Printing Impressions/RIT Printing Industry Hall of Fame.

“It’s important to realize the fact that things are going to change constantly,” notes Garvey. “You have to get in early enough on new business opportunities so that the changes you make can meet the demand that exists in the market. If you end up being late, then you’re playing catch up and have lost the opportunity to gain market share. And, once you’ve made up your mind on which direction to take, then maintain the focus and determination to say, ‘I’m going to take this path, because it’s the right path to follow.’ “